His professor (Markus Jacobsson) is going along with this, as part of an anti-phishing group at Indiana University. Are you sure you know what you're talking about? If you do, it would probably help to explain it, since from where most of us stand this guy looks as though he's doing everyone a service, and going about it the right way, or at least a perfectly acceptable way which has the benefit of calling attention to some of the more suspect practices in the industry.
That looks interesting, but I'm not sure it's what I was thinking of. Firexplorer looks like a version of Firefox that looks like IE, is that correct? I was thinking of an actual plugin for IE, so that users would actually run IE but be able to transparently get Firefox (or at least a Gecko renderer) in the IE window, similar to the situation with Flash. That way they'd still have the real IE for sites which require it, but sites which want to could target the Firefox plugin so they don't have to deal with IE's quirks.
I deal with ordinary users every time I deliver one of the systems I develop. But add "one way or another" to my sentence if it makes you happy. The point is, Flash is installed on a lot of user machines, whether they did it themselves, or whined at their local IT grunt to do it for them, or whether the IT grunts preinstall it as a matter of policy.
Here's what I was thinking: ordinary users don't seem to have a problem installing Flash, which is a several MB download, when they're told that they need it to view a site. So if the Gecko ActiveX control does the trick, those of us who are serious about eliminating IE should detect IE visitors and display a page saying that you need to download the Firefox/Gecko control to use the site (or Firefox itself, of course).
Pretty soon, about as many people who have Flash will also have Firefox running inside IE, and it'll no longer be necessary for many people to cater to IE.
You have something of a point, but mostly you're confusing abuse by users with a problem with the technology. Compared to HTML 3, it's worth using HTML 4 and CSS, but just be sane and use a sensible subset.
A lot of the bloat is there to satisfy the marketing crowd who want to e.g. control things at the pixel level (and don't understand how that fails on different screen geometries), but that doesn't mean you can't write good-looking, efficient HTML4/CSS pages.
If that's a joke, I don't get it. If it's a troll, I'm biting. If you think Bonfire of the Vanities was by Kurt Vonnegut, you have no clue who Kurt Vonnegut was.
You're right, it wasn't an accident, but don't look to Fermilab. Who has the most to lose if we finally figure out the ultimate secrets of the universe? That's right...
God. The forbidden Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden was just the first barrier. Exploding magnets are just God's way of saying "Discovereth not the Higgs Boson, for in what day soever thou shalt discover it, thou shalt die the death." Of course, the scientists are all like "Yeah yeah, that's what you said about the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and that worked out OK. We'll take our chances." And God is all like "Grrrr! Frickin' arrogant humans! Why did I give you free will, anyway?" And the scientists are like "What-ever, you won't be such hot shit after we've bagged the boson, dude!" and God is like "Oh crap, you're right! I'm so scared! Look at me shaking! And oh by the way, have you checked the accelerator alignment lately? Muhahaha!"
That was the original joke, the point is that it's now outdated. The British are now free to make computers because they've figured out how to make them leak oil. Watch out, Dell, the redcoats are coming for you!
It'll be a big ho-hum if they announce that they've found the Higgs Boson exactly the way they expected with exactly the observations they predicted.
Luckily for all of us, this is super-unlikely to happen. Most physicists who don't completely drink all their own koolaid know that.
However, when it comes to perpetual motion/FTL travel/time travel, dream on. Sorry, there's just too much arguing against those. As for antigrav, it's conceivable that some unusual ways of interacting with gravity could be found, but I wouldn't hold out any hopes for antigrav flying cars anytime soon.
You should join Second Life if only because it's new. If only because it's cool. Or if only because other people find it cool.
Back around '96, the marketing slogan for OMG's CORBA was "Get on the bus". Where is CORBA now? You're making the same argument here, but it's the argument used for a fad, like the Macarena.
No matter how much you abhor these newfangled techie virtual world thingamabobs, the thing about change is that you either cause it or get hit on the head with it.
That's only true of changes that take hold and enter the mainstream.
Something which really achieved what people are trying to use Second Life for would be very useful. But from an "everyone should use it" perspective, Second Life is at the alpha test level right now, and whatever subsequent incarnation of it becomes mainstream, it's likely to have the same relationship to Second Life as the web has to gopher.
This is not a criticism of Second Life per se, but its fans should recognize that it's far from being something with universal appeal in its current form.
You need to be more specific. The people who plug permanently into the neural connectors are doomed, because the rest of us will just go around disconnecting them from life support and, uh, acquiring their stuff. Darwin at his finest!
Will ya look at that, took the bait clean off the hook. But since you're big on rules, the one I followed in this case is the one that says that contiguous digits form larger numbers which have their own pronunciation. Be glad I didn't say "Ex-eero-three-hundred-and-fourteen".
my nick is not a acronym
So I guess you say Ra.D.A.R., then, and F.U.B.A.R., and G.N.U., and N.A.M.B.L.A.? Many acronyms are pronounced as words, so your rule doesn't fly. Long live Xool!
Oh, you half-millioners are so cute. Can't even detect an old/. curmudgeon having fun with you without a smiley face to clue you in.
FWIW, your confusion about the mod system is simply that the moderators and the posters are the same people, so why would you somehow expect moderation to work any better than comments themselves? I mean, here you are, replying to yourself three times in a row about something utterly trivial about which no-one cares. I can only imagine what you do when you have mod points!
In that universe, there is a Higgs boson, and it's pretty, too. But that doesn't mean we have Higgs bosons. Parallel universes aren't that useful except for locating your evil twin.
Slashdot Mirror
His professor (Markus Jacobsson) is going along with this, as part of an anti-phishing group at Indiana University. Are you sure you know what you're talking about? If you do, it would probably help to explain it, since from where most of us stand this guy looks as though he's doing everyone a service, and going about it the right way, or at least a perfectly acceptable way which has the benefit of calling attention to some of the more suspect practices in the industry.
That looks interesting, but I'm not sure it's what I was thinking of. Firexplorer looks like a version of Firefox that looks like IE, is that correct? I was thinking of an actual plugin for IE, so that users would actually run IE but be able to transparently get Firefox (or at least a Gecko renderer) in the IE window, similar to the situation with Flash. That way they'd still have the real IE for sites which require it, but sites which want to could target the Firefox plugin so they don't have to deal with IE's quirks.
I deal with ordinary users every time I deliver one of the systems I develop. But add "one way or another" to my sentence if it makes you happy. The point is, Flash is installed on a lot of user machines, whether they did it themselves, or whined at their local IT grunt to do it for them, or whether the IT grunts preinstall it as a matter of policy.
Here's what I was thinking: ordinary users don't seem to have a problem installing Flash, which is a several MB download, when they're told that they need it to view a site. So if the Gecko ActiveX control does the trick, those of us who are serious about eliminating IE should detect IE visitors and display a page saying that you need to download the Firefox/Gecko control to use the site (or Firefox itself, of course).
Pretty soon, about as many people who have Flash will also have Firefox running inside IE, and it'll no longer be necessary for many people to cater to IE.
What we need is a Firefox plugin for IE. Someone get on that, please.
You have something of a point, but mostly you're confusing abuse by users with a problem with the technology. Compared to HTML 3, it's worth using HTML 4 and CSS, but just be sane and use a sensible subset.
A lot of the bloat is there to satisfy the marketing crowd who want to e.g. control things at the pixel level (and don't understand how that fails on different screen geometries), but that doesn't mean you can't write good-looking, efficient HTML4/CSS pages.
Thanks, it does. :)
If that's a joke, I don't get it. If it's a troll, I'm biting. If you think Bonfire of the Vanities was by Kurt Vonnegut, you have no clue who Kurt Vonnegut was.
You're right, it wasn't an accident, but don't look to Fermilab. Who has the most to lose if we finally figure out the ultimate secrets of the universe? That's right...
God. The forbidden Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden was just the first barrier. Exploding magnets are just God's way of saying "Discovereth not the Higgs Boson, for in what day soever thou shalt discover it, thou shalt die the death." Of course, the scientists are all like "Yeah yeah, that's what you said about the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and that worked out OK. We'll take our chances." And God is all like "Grrrr! Frickin' arrogant humans! Why did I give you free will, anyway?" And the scientists are like "What-ever, you won't be such hot shit after we've bagged the boson, dude!" and God is like "Oh crap, you're right! I'm so scared! Look at me shaking! And oh by the way, have you checked the accelerator alignment lately? Muhahaha!"
Sounds pretty much like the last Intel P4 I had. Let me put it this way, in that context "smokin'" is not a compliment.
We need a mod category +/-0, Nice Try.
Spoken like someone who's never read a book in his life. Well done, you're this guy.
Wow. This has to be the most factually interesting response to a joke I've ever seen. Thanks!
I know, I only visited this thread to see the sheer mass of In Soviet Russia jokes and the people complaining about them. Imagine my disappointment.
Apparently, when the article is actually set in Soviet Russia, it takes all the sport out of it.
OSHA and the EPA. We're talking potential Superfund sites in every server room! Yeah baby!
That was the original joke, the point is that it's now outdated. The British are now free to make computers because they've figured out how to make them leak oil. Watch out, Dell, the redcoats are coming for you!
However, when it comes to perpetual motion/FTL travel/time travel, dream on. Sorry, there's just too much arguing against those. As for antigrav, it's conceivable that some unusual ways of interacting with gravity could be found, but I wouldn't hold out any hopes for antigrav flying cars anytime soon.
Since you left it on the table, I'll do the hono[u]rs:
At last, the British have found a way to make computers leak oil!
Back around '96, the marketing slogan for OMG's CORBA was "Get on the bus". Where is CORBA now? You're making the same argument here, but it's the argument used for a fad, like the Macarena.
That's only true of changes that take hold and enter the mainstream.
Something which really achieved what people are trying to use Second Life for would be very useful. But from an "everyone should use it" perspective, Second Life is at the alpha test level right now, and whatever subsequent incarnation of it becomes mainstream, it's likely to have the same relationship to Second Life as the web has to gopher.
This is not a criticism of Second Life per se, but its fans should recognize that it's far from being something with universal appeal in its current form.
You need to be more specific. The people who plug permanently into the neural connectors are doomed, because the rest of us will just go around disconnecting them from life support and, uh, acquiring their stuff. Darwin at his finest!
Oh, you half-millioners are so cute. Can't even detect an old /. curmudgeon having fun with you without a smiley face to clue you in.
FWIW, your confusion about the mod system is simply that the moderators and the posters are the same people, so why would you somehow expect moderation to work any better than comments themselves? I mean, here you are, replying to yourself three times in a row about something utterly trivial about which no-one cares. I can only imagine what you do when you have mod points!
Don't worry, via careful non-enforcement[*] the EPA is making sure that we won't have "outdoors" for long. No need for the FDA to get involved.
[*] If Republicans can't get smaller government, they'll settle for big government that does nothing. See FEMA.
In that universe, there is a Higgs boson, and it's pretty, too. But that doesn't mean we have Higgs bosons. Parallel universes aren't that useful except for locating your evil twin.